Belén Martínez-Ferrer

A Mutual Hostility Explanation for the Co-Occurrence of Delinquency and Depressive Mood in Adolescence

Different interpersonal experiences are related to delinquency and depressive mood. In many studies, delinquency has been associated with exposing others to hostility, while depressive mood has been associated with being a victim of others’ hostility. In this study, we proposed that adolescents with a co-occurrence of high delinquency and depressive mood may be both perpetrators and victims in their relations with parents at home, peers and teachers at school, and other people encountered in leisure time. We studied a normative sample of 1452 mid-adolescents (50.61% boys and 49.38% girls). Cluster analyses found a group with a co-occurrence of high delinquency and high depressive mood. Adolescents in this cluster group were highest on being exposed to hostility, exposing others to hostility, and being involved in mutually hostile interactions with others in different everyday contexts. The findings were especially strong when we examined being a victim and a perpetrator across contexts. The results were similar for boys and girls. We conclude that the co-occurrence of high delinquency and depressive mood among some adolescents is intimately linked to the mutually hostile interactions that these adolescents experience in their everyday interpersonal contexts.

Family Relationships and Cyberbullying

This chapter analyzes the relationship between family and cyberbullying, a type of technological harassment among peers which is of growing concern in the scientific community and in today’s society. First, this chapter discusses factors associated with family functioning that may predict cyberbullying, particularly the family climate (cohesion, expressivity, and conflict) and parent–children communication. It also examines the role of parental socialization styles and their continuity with parental styles on the Internet: authoritarian style, laissez-faire, permissive and authoritative. In relation to parental styles, one section in this chapter describes the parental monitoring of Internet use and the various types of parental mediation strategies used by parents to control their children’s online behavior. The chapter ends with a section on preventing cyberbullying in the family itself. It concludes that parent–children communication helps create a positive family climate to implement emotionally suitable socialization styles and, in short, to prevent risky behaviors in children.

Victimization, perception of insecurity, and changes in daily routines in Mexico

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To analyze the relationships between victimization, perception of insecurity, and changes in routines. METHODS The 8,170 subjects of both sexes (49.9% women and 50.1% men) aged between 12 and 60 years, selected from a proportional stratified sampling, participated in this study. The measuring instrument was an adaptation of the National Survey on Victimization and Perception of Public Security. Chi-square tests were performed. RESULTS The results show significant differences on victimization and sex regarding perception of insecurity, restrictions on everyday activities, and protection measures. 13.1% of those interviewed claimed to have been victims of a crime in the past 12 months. 52.7% of women considered their municipality as unsafe or very unsafe. In the case of men, this percentage was 58.2%. Female victims reported significant restrictions in everyday activities when compared to non-victims. In relation to men, the percentage of victims with a high restriction of activities was higher in male victims than non-victims. In the group of victimized women, the segment of women who opted for increased measures of protection against crime was larger than expected, while those of non-victims who took less protective measures was lower than expected. These same results were observed in the group of men. CONCLUSIONS The experience of victimization implies a greater perception of insecurity. However, the climate of insecurity is widespread in a large number of citizens. Gender differences in a high-crime environment show the importance of investigating in depth the roles of both genders in the perception of insecurity and changes in routines.

New Directions for Preventing Dating Violence in Adolescence: The Study of Gender Models

Dating violence is a huge transcultural and alarming phenomenon, directly linked with endless discrimination against women. The latest research on dating violence in adolescence shows how dating violence is persistent and common in the adolescent period as well and pinpoints the origin of gender violence from first adolescent relationships. This element takes us to considerate how recent gender violence studies and policies, increased also thanks to international efforts on this issue, are not bringing expected results, especially among young people. This mini-review aims to analyze the main characteristics of current gender studies and policies on dating violence, focusing on percentages with a woman-centered approach, which stresses the consequences of gender violence. Other gender studies, that consider gender as a relational product, stress the importance of integrating the analysis of gender models as a key instrument to understand the main causes of dating violence, providing new elements to develop effective policies against dating violence. Indeed, gender models of femininity and masculinity are based on a binary system, which is also a reciprocal recognition and identity system: gender models define female and male characteristics, roles, stereotypes, and expectation, being complementary and foreclosing at the same time. Recent studies on gender relationships, especially among the youth, allows us to propose a new dialog between dating violence studies and gender model studies, underling the need of a complete and complex understanding of gender structure, and of its tensions and contradictions, to put an end to gender and dating violence, through effective programs.